


you can't fight the friction

by disarmlow



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst, Child Neglect, F/M, Feels, Jealousy, Past Alice Cooper/FP Jones II, Riverdale parents, Riverparents, Smut, Varying POVs, Young Alice Cooper/FP Jones II, alcohol use, all the parents will probably weigh in, basically riverdale parent drabbles in the same universe, falice - Freeform, falice snippets really, fred andrews is a good bro, getting really into the nitty gritty backstory, hermione lodge - Freeform, teenage angst abounds, the riverdale parents drama we all thirst for, they have terrible parents fyi, why am I doing this to myself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-21
Packaged: 2019-04-24 12:44:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 9
Words: 7,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14355783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/disarmlow/pseuds/disarmlow
Summary: Some snippets of FP and Alice (and the people surrounding them) during senior year of Riverdale.He's only seventeen and he's the kind of tired that seeps into your bone marrow, and he stops, shoulders slumped, and when he speaks her name it comes out hoarse.





	1. baby is my love too old for you?

**Author's Note:**

> Boy I love Riverdale parents. I don't know why I'm writing this but you know here it is anyway. This chapter is in FP's POV, next one will be Alice
> 
> Titles are both from Imagine Dragons: Friction and Emma.

He's chasing her out of the Whyte Wyrm, slinging his jacket on as he goes, and it hits him that this might be the 100th time he's done this, and suddenly before he can grab her arm, he's tired. He's only seventeen and he's the kind of tired that seeps into your bone marrow, and he stops, shoulders slumped, and when he speaks her name it comes out hoarse.

  
She stops on a dime in her stilettos and her painted on jeans that are ripped in all the right places, and when she turns around those baby blues are so fire bright that his breath catches in his chest.

  
She crosses her arms, looks away, shuts him out, and oh, she's so good at that. She's good at turning it all off, at shutting him out, and it hurts more every time.

  
But FP is seventeen and he feels like he's lived a lifetime and they've been through so much more than any kids should and he can't just let her go.

  
"What do you want me to do, Ally?" He says, and he's looking up at the nicotine stained ceiling of the bar because if he looks at her he'll never say what he needs to say to her.

  
"I don't want you to do anything, FP. Forget it." Her words are ice cold, like he's nobody, like he's just some asshole at the bar that tried to grab her ass, but he knows if he looked at her those blue eyes would be on fire.

  
"You want me to say I'm sorry?" He's still looking at the ceiling, counting the beer stains from bar fights.

She hesitates, doesn't cut him with her words, and then he goes and does it.

He looks down at her, and she's small and her hair is ratty because she hasn't been at his place lately and he knows her dad has been too drunk to pay the water bill this month. Her tanktop isn't stained though, so that means she's been washing her clothes out with the toilet tank water and he can see where she's clutching her elbow that she's been chewing her cuticles down to the quick.

He touches her elbow and pulls her toward him, gentle, slow, like he's coaxing a wild animal.

Her eyes are wild and full and darting back and forth across his face and God, it hits him right in the middle of his chest how beautiful and dangerous she looks.

"I'll say I'm sorry, Ally," he says, muttering into her hair. "I'll say whatever you want. I just don't like him, is all. Don't like the way he looks at you."

She snatches back, at that, and FP regrets the three drinks he had while he was waiting on her, because he should've known better than to mention him.

"Like what? Like I'm somebody? Like I'm not just a Serpent slut?"

She doesn't even look mad, just standing there, so close he could reach out and brush her wild hair from her face, but she's on fire, trembling, and no one but him would know it.

"Like you're his," FP finally roars, and she pulls away from him, shaking her unwashed curls out of her face and she laughs out loud.

"Nobody owns me, FP. Not even you."

And she's out the door, faster than he'd ever seen anyone move in those stilettos, and his face is in his hands and he knows where she's going now and it's a rock in his gut.

The next time he sees her she's freshly showered and wearing pink little girl lipstick and he wonders if it will always hurt so much to look at her like this, like this Northside doll someone else has crafted.

But then she wraps her arms around his neck and laughs into his mouth when he kisses her, and no matter how much makeup she wears or how hard she tries to hide who she really is, he knows about that snake curling around her left thigh, the tail resting behind her knee and how she giggles when he kisses her there.

Everything is right, for a while. His dad is still over the road in his beat up semi, and there's no one to stop them burning the eggs the next morning because she's hopped up on the counter wearing nothing but his old tshirt and spreading her thighs to tease him and smiling, smiling, smiling, her pink lipstick worn away hours ago.

He falls asleep on the couch while they're watching some old movie on his old black and white, and she's curled around him like a cat.

When he wakes up she's gone and she's taken her fancy clothes and her pink lipstick with her and all that's left is the smell of her on his sheets and he needs a drink.

He gets these pieces of her, and it's enough until it's not and he's only seventeen and he doesn't know where this ends. Not yet.

 


	2. come pick me up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alice hates it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just love this backstory so much. 
> 
> It's real, in my head, seriously.
> 
> Chapter Title is from Come Pick Me Up by Ryan Adams - he's amazing.

Alice hates it. She hates how her heart aches when he isn't around or the lump in her throat when she sees him smiling at Gladys or the way she wants to run her fingers through his hair when he sidles up next to her on the bus even though there's a dozen empty seats.

She hates the way he looks at her, those brown eyes and what she sees in them. She hates how he's everything to her but nothing that she wants.

Alice thinks it's cruel, to have something this big at seventeen. She thinks it's cruel to give her something so terrible and wonderful and know she'll have to walk away.

Because she doesn't want to have babies crying in the background while she yells at FP because he's been out drinking. She doesn't want to wash out diapers with the toilet tank water.

She doesn't want to stitch him up after a job, doesn't want to be the Serpent Princess. Maybe she never did.

FP doesn't understand, she knows. She doesn't want to hurt him but she can't let him in, can't let him know that he makes her breath catch in her throat when he winks at her or how when they're together she can't think about anything but the next hour, the next touch, the next kiss.

She goes to his trailer and when she wakes up hours later and he's asleep she feels like she's sliding backwards into this life she's always hated, and she leaves without allowing herself to look back at the hair falling over his eyes, the way his arm is curled around something that isn't there.

She goes to Pop's with Hal and pastes on that porcelain doll smile Hal loves so much and she pretends that she isn't trailer trash, Serpent royalty, pretends that she doesn't tiptoe into her house when she sees her dad's truck in the yard, that she's never had to steal bread or call the ambulance to her father when he wouldn't wake up after a night of drugs and drink and some job with the Serpents.

FP shows up, inevitably. Sometimes she thinks he must have caught her scent, tracks her down wherever she goes, because he is a feral sort of almost-man, growling when she kisses the stubble trailing down his throat.

She pretends to not notice the way his jaw is clenched even though his patented nonchalant smile to Gladys and Mary seems normal when he slides into the booth next to Gladys.

She pretends that when he slings his arm around quiet, mousy Gladys that she doesn't notice out of the corner of her eye. She pretends it doesn't make her burn.

She feels his eyes on her with every move she makes and she gives in to this game they play eventually, stares him back while smiling her babydoll smile, and slides her bare legs over Hal's lap in the booth. Hal does his part and places a hand high up on her thigh, and FP looks away, down at the table, one fist clenched around his milkshake so tightly she wonders why it doesn't break.

It's two hours past her curfew and her breath smells like the gin Hal steals from his dad's liquor cabinet and she's got Hal's cologne all over her when she shows up at FP's trailer.

She doesn't knock, and when she sees FP's got mousy Gladys propped up on the counter with her skirt up, she punches a hole in the sheet rock door.

He turns away from Gladys and grins at her, and she wants to kill him and she wants to kiss him and she's on fire, fire, fire.

It's daylight before he catches up to her and he traces the back of her knee where just a glimpse of the snake peeks out from her skirt after they make up.

She doesn't want to love him but it feels bigger than her, bigger than both of them, and she's only seventeen and she doesn't know where this ends but it can't be anywhere good because of how much it hurts.


	3. nothing hurts like a woman can

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fred thinks it's funny, until it's not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really do love Fred Andrews, such a cinnamon roll.
> 
> Title is from I Can't Go On Without You by Kaleo.

They have this thing, FP and Alice, and everybody knows it.

Even Gladys and Hal, as much as they try to deny it or laugh it off, they avert their eyes when FP and Alice pass each other in the hallway.

Sometimes they don't even look at each other, when they pass, but there's this ring of fire around them, something you can't see or touch but you can feel from a mile away. It's been going on since junior year and everyone is pretending it hasn't.

Fred thinks it's funny, until it's not. Until his best friend is throwing up whiskey from Fred's tailgate and begging Fred to please drive him around to find Alice.

It would've still been funny, something Fred could have laughed off, called FP lovesick, whipped, but for the look on FP's face.

So they drive around for hours on the streets of the Southside, looking for a girl with dirty blond hair and a snakeskin skirt.

FP's apologizing, sobered up some, but he's still desperate, his eyes darting all over the street, making Fred go down alleyways and side streets he didn't even know existed.

"I know it's past your curfew, Fred; I know your dad will skin you but I just - I have to -"

Fred can't stand the break in his friend's voice and he clasps him on the shoulder and says "It's ok pal, don't worry, we'll find her," even though he thinks they might have better luck looking on a certain Northside street.

He can't say this to FP when his eyes are this wild, when he's this close to crying, running his hands through his hair over and over.

Fred's wrong, though, and they find her underneath a streetlight a few miles from the Whyte Wyrm with holes in her fishnets and blood on her knees, her face in her hands.

She doesn't even look up as the truck approaches, but FP nearly kills himself jumping out before Fred can slam on the squealing brakes.

Fred can't look at them longer than a moment, can't look at FP kissing her bloody knees then cradling her face in his hands, the way Alice grabs his shirt like she's drowning. It's too much. It's too big.

Fred's only seventeen and he doesn't understand how kissing girls could get so heavy. He's never looked at any girl the way FP looks at Alice, not even Mary.

He's afraid for his friend, afraid this is something that will break him, and for three months he tells FP this.

For three months he explains that maybe she's no good for him, he's no good for her, she's a nice girl but we're just kids, everything he can think to say, and sometimes FP nods and agrees with him but they always end up back in the same place.

Fred thinks he's crazy for three months, until Hermione Valdez transfers in from Greendale and slides in to a seat next to him in homeroom.

"Hey, handsome," she says, and smiles at him, and he's only seventeen and he's already lost.


	4. thought I was rock steady; that I didn't need no help

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alice is Southside, she's different, forbidden, and yeah, Hal loves to taste that snake, run his tongue across it, and maybe that's a lot of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was easier to write than I expected. I'm struggling with Mary so I might do Hermione next unless I do another FP or Alice chapter since I'm Falice trash.
> 
> Thanks so much for the kudos and comments I love every one of you for reading my dumb headcanons!
> 
> Chapter title is from Ahead of Myself by X Ambassadors.

"Why her?"

Hal snaps his eyes back to Greg, his friend, who was staring openly at Alice Smith. 

"Whaddya mean, why her?" He says, nonchalantly, even though even he hears the defensive tone in his voice.

Greg points at Alice, who is leaning against the locker waiting for Mary to come out of homeroom and nibbling on her cuticles. She's got one knee bent, her foot flat on the locker door, and Hal can see the peek of Serpent slithering out of the bend of her knee and it makes his mouth dry for a moment and he forgets about his friend.

Friend is an overstatement, though. Hal's known Greg forever, but only because his parents were some rich bigshots and his parents forced him to sit next to him at stuffy dinner parties, and even then, Greg was a bit of a dick.

They're friends due to money and proximity, but Hal doesn't want anything getting back to his parents, so he shrugs.

Greg pokes him in the arm. "Don't lie! I've seen you chatting her up after study hall. I mean, she's hot," he said, glancing back at Alice, "but there are hotter. Cleaner."

He sneers when he says that and Hal wants to sock him in the jaw, but he just half smiles at Greg. "Dirty is hotter than clean. Sometimes you just want to slum it."

The words feel slimy coming out of his mouth because they do have a ring of truth.

Alice is Southside, she's different, forbidden, and yeah, Hal loves to taste that snake, run his tongue across it, and maybe that's a lot of it. 

But she's also smart and sassy and she's got something hidden about her, something secret, and it drives him crazy, makes him seek her out, pull her into the broom closet and ask her where's she been but she always just smiles.

"What do you care, Preppy?" 

She's running her fingers through his blond hair and just one shade lighter and they'd be a perfect set, but she lives in trailer and she's never had the money for things like hair color. She doesn't say that, but he knows it. He knows a lot of things about her, but there's something else, something big and strange but fascinating.

He's not going to marry her, or anything. Hal's only seventeen and he's got the world on a silver platter even though his father still punches him in the stomach if he's too late coming back from curfew and his mother just cries and cries all the time and most nights he doesn't sleep, just waiting to go to school and leave that huge house, waiting to be able to breathe easily.

He's still watching Alice, and he sees her eyes follow that kid in the Serpent jacket, and he wonders for a moment but then the bell rings and he shrugs it off, headed back to class with Greg, his friend by proximity.

When Hal Cooper is in bed, looking at the ceiling, his chest aching from the strain of trying to breathe in this air that tastes of old money and resentment, he wonders if he's got a ring of pain, too, and that's what draws him to her.

He wonders if he could give up that platter, let it all go, be able to breathe again, if only she'd let him in.

He's only seventeen and he doesn't know how hard it is to do what you want when it goes against everything you've ever known, to love her, snake and dirty blond hair, bitten cuticles and all. In less than three months, he will.


	5. If loves a fight, then I shall die With my heart on a trigger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first time he ever lays eyes on her, he's covered in blood and dirt and she's standing over him, the streetlight illuminating her blonde curls, and he'd think she was an angel if not for the cigarette burning in her hand and the smirk on her face.

The first time he ever lays eyes on her, he's covered in blood and dirt and she's standing over him, the streetlight illuminating her blonde curls, and he'd think she was an angel if not for the cigarette burning in her hand and the smirk on her face.

She gives him a small hand to help him up, and he stumbles against her and she laughs, and it sounds like music to him even though his ears are ringing and he's sixteen years old and he's just been beaten like a dog and it hurts to grin but he's doing it anyway.

In the back of the beaten up van they'd taken him to the woods in, she stitches his wounds, particularly the one right below his hairline which had caused all the bleeding, and it hurts and he's cursing but she's still laughing.

"You took it like a champ," she said, and her voice is huskier than he expected.

Mustang is sitting next to him with some girl's legs on his lap and he laughs out loud. "That's a first, Alice! You must be sweet on this one."

"Alice," FP all but whispers, and he's sixteen but he knows he should have said something more clever, but Alice smiles, and her eyes are so blue it makes his breath catch in his throat.

"Yeah," she says, gently dabbing at the blood on his face. "Like down the rabbit hole, you know, through-"

"the looking glass," he finishes, and he wants to touch her face so badly.

She smiles again, and it's softer now. "I'm through the looking glass, all right," and her blue eyes have fire in them and he wants to be burned.

FP Jones is sixteen and covered in dirt and blood when he starts this dance with Alice Cooper, and it lasts two years and it lasts a lifetime, and when it all ends it seems like this awful circle, because the last time they're in love it's like this, except she's the one covered in dirt and blood.


	6. someday these will be the good old days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione Valdez finds herself seventeen and suddenly with options, options that she'd previously only thought possible for those skinny white girls with the new clothes and the stick straight hair.

Hermione Valdez finds herself seventeen and suddenly with options, options that she'd previously only thought possible for those skinny white girls with the new clothes and the stick straight hair. She's invited to parties and the guys at Riverdale find her skin exotic rather than too brown and her body curvy rather than fat and she thanks God that her acne had cleared up over the summer.

Even the girls seem to like her, ask her where she's from ( _Texas,_ she says, and they giggle and say  _no, where are you really from?_ and she has to explain that her parents are from Mexico, and that seems to delight them), ask her where she gets her dresses (her mother makes most of them with a sewing machine and cheap fabric, but tells them she has them tailored, which is technically true), and tell her she just must try out for the River Vixens because with her figure she'd be a knockout.

By the time she makes it to homeroom on her first day, she's given her phone number away half a dozen times and she feels a little dazed but also brazen. So when she spots the boy with honey brown eyes and a playful smirk, she isn't afraid to sit next to him, and even to flirt a little.

"Hey, handsome," she said, and when he looked up at her, his smirk faded a bit, and she wavered. "Is this seat taken?" she said, almost in a whisper, and starts to grab her backpack.

He grabs her wrist as she reaches for it, and his grip is gentle but she's still startled and when her eyes dart up to his face he looks a little stunned.

He lets her go just as suddenly as he'd grabbed her, and he rubs the back of his neck almost sheepishly. "Sorry," he says, and half smiles at her. "I didn't mean to scare you. I just...couldn't let you get away."

She feels herself blushing and is for once grateful for her dark complexion and she can't keep from smiling.

He's smiling, too, that playful smirk that had drawn her to sit next to him in the first place, and he sticks out his hand for her to shake. "Fred Andrews."

"Hermione Valdez. Pleased to meet you," she says automatically, and almost primly shakes his hand.

"Pleasure's all mine," he murmurs, and then a pretty redhead comes rushing in, huffing as she plops down in the seat behind Fred.

"Fred, are you harassing the new girl?"

Hermione freezes but when the redhead side eyes her and smiles as if they're in on a joke, she relaxes.

"I'm Mary. That's Fred, but dollars to donuts he's already introduced himself. Don't believe a word he says, and don't fall for his all American look. He's an awful flirt."

"Aw, Mary-" Fred's rubbing the back of his neck again. 

Hermione isn't sure what to say - she can't quite read what's going on, if Mary is interested in Fred and warning her off or if she's just spunky, and she's no closer to an answer when the teacher comes in.

All through class she glances at him, and he never stops moving, tapping his pencil on the desk or tapping his feet, and a couple of times she catches him staring and he just smirks at her some more, unapologetic.

She makes a beeline for the door when the bell rings, and decides she might find a different seat for tomorrow. Playful smirk and honey brown eyes aside, whatever Fred and Mary might or might not have going on was none of her business.

She's struggling to open her locker after putting in the combination when he leans one shoulder against the locker next to hers. He's got this hangdog expression on his face, no playful smirk in sight.

"Hello," she says warily, and without a word he bangs a fist lightly on the top of the locker. It opens immediately, and Hermione gives him a grateful smile.

"There it is," he says softly, his light brown eyes soulful.

Hermione feels a little adrift looking into them, and it takes her a moment to reply. "There what is?" 

He leans toward her and Hermione realizes she's unconsciously drifted in his direction, tilting her shoulders toward him with her books still cradled against her chest.

He grins at her crookedly and thumbs the corner of her mouth softly, where she's still smiling.

Hermione is seventeen and she can't stop smiling at this boy with his contradictory soulful brown eyes and playful smirk, even when he kisses her for the first time behind the bleachers at the football field a week later.

She thinks then maybe he'll just keep her smiling forever and it will always be like this, fun and bright and new, nothing like Fred's best friend and that sullen girl who seem to always be either necking or fighting, but she's only seventeen and she doesn't know what storms are coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know what I'm doing with my life. 
> 
> Commenters, I love you. Kudoers, I love you too. Thanks for coming on this crazy ride with me, I can't get my head out of this universe so there's much more to come.
> 
> I thought this sunshiny Fred/Hermione chapter might be good because the next chapter is FP and there really is a storm a comin.
> 
> I ended up using my Amazon music playlist and challenging myself to write a chapter for every song, so that's a thing I did for no reason whatsoever. I told you I didn't know what I was doing with my life.
> 
> Title is from Good Old Days by Macklemore.


	7. we ain't never getting older

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FP and Alice are a powderkeg.

FP and Alice are a powderkeg.

  
They all know it, the whole gang, but they keep laughing and drinking and smoking and ignoring it.

  
They're all standing around, waiting for the explosion, and Fred's eyes are hooded with worry sometimes and when Gladys is around they're all a little muted, but that's rare because she's shy and she looks down at her hands a lot and the real reason she's on the outskirts of the gang is because no one knows how to talk to her. No one knows how to tell her that she came in to something bigger than they all knew, and that they were waiting for the fire to start, to spread.

It's the same with Hal, but that's easier because his kind rarely associate with the gang because they're all a little bit beneath them, and it's easier because he's got a lot to fall back on, money and family and his Jaguar but Gladys doesn't. She comes from the Southside and she isn't fierce and nonchalant like FP or pretty and tough like Alice, so she's fragile.

  
There's these little explosions, like bottle rockets, and the rest of the gang all jump, wide eyed, watching it unfold and wondering is this it? Is this going to be it?  
One week before the championship game with Greendale, FP gets too drunk (which was starting to become a trend, but hey, they're young, they're having fun and when it's not fun anymore they don't know how to say it) and Alice shows up out of nowhere wearing a Riverdale letter jacket that isn't his.

Fred sees her before FP does and while she's at the keg getting a beer he tries his damndest to distract FP before it all goes up in flames.

_This is it_ , he thinks, and he's never been so worried in his life because he's seventeen but FP has been his best friend since they were snotnosed kids, more like his brother since FP's dad was never around to amount to anything.

  
They had done all their firsts together like their first cigarette ( _they were 10 and Fred promptly threw up and FP only got a couple of drags before he was laughing and coughing too hard to finish_ ), first party ( _Fred was the one that got too drunk, then, and FP threw him in the back of Fred's pickup and drove him to his trailer so he wouldn't get in trouble_ ), first days at school ( _FP punched someone his first day of elementary school and Fred took the fall_ ), but this first isn't one Fred feels equipped to handle, because when FP looks at Alice it's something different than crushes and late night necking. When he looks at her it's like he's looking at his future, and Fred doesn't like it because it's not how Alice looks at FP.

  
They've been doing this for a year and they're only seventeen but Alice is already looking at FP like she's looking at her past.

  
So it's the week before the championship game and when Fred picks FP up he already knows it's going to be a long night because he's got that look again and he comes out and before Fred's even stopped the truck he's banging the hood and whooping.

  
"Where's Alice?" Fred asks, expecting her to trail after him and climb over FP to straddle the gearshift, side eyeing Fred with her blue eyes and calling him Freddy because she knows he hates it. It's an innocent enough question since she's spent all week at FP's trailer and they ride to school together on his dirtbike.

  
FP looks down at his lap, scoffs, and pulls out his father's flask and hands it to him, and Fred's heart sinks a little even as he takes a swig that burns in his throat. Fred remembers suddenly that Hal and his crew weren't around last week, some ski trip in Aspen, but he'd seen a few of them sharing a joint behind the bleachers after practice that morning.

  
He waits, and FP keeps looking down at his lap for a moment and then,"Who cares?" He says, and then he grins his patented bad boy grin and bangs on the dashboard. "Let's go fuck some shit up."

  
Three hours later she shows up to the bonfire in Hal's letter jacket and Fred slings an arm around FP's shoulders before he can see her coming up the river bank unsteadily in bare feet.

  
"Let's get another beer, huh?" He says, even though neither of them need one, and FP grins in approval before Mary, bright eyed from one too many homemade screwdrivers, ruins his whole plan.

  
"Look who the cat dragged in! And in new threads, too! Whose letters are those, Ally?"

  
Terry Topaz, who showed up at roughly 50% of the Riverdale High bonfires when he was sure there'd be booze despite still being at Southside, scoffs. "Like you gotta ask."

  
FP doesn't look over, not yet, is looking down into the dregs of his beer and breathing hard.

  
"FP, man, don't..." and Fred can't think of how to finish that because Hermione is already wearing his jacket instead of showing up in someone else's.

  
FP gives him a desperate glance and then he's off, chucking his beer on the ground and throwing Fred's arm off his shoulders.

  
From there, it's all a series of small fires, with the first being Alice kicking sand in Gladys face when she finds her with FP, kissing with their feet in the water, being dragged away kicking and screaming , "You can have him, you scrawny Southside whore," by a laughing Ricky Mantle and no one knows how that started, if it was just seeing them or if FP mouthed off but they know it wasn't Gladys who is crying into her hands when Terry puts her into his El Dorado to take her home.

  
FP and Alice are separated by the gang as much as possible, and it's almost funny how they skirt around each other at first but something always pulls them back together and that's how all this has been since the day they met.

  
The second flame starts when FP is standing on the edge of the pier and Alice tries to shove him in but with a grin and a pivot she's sputtering in the water and calling him a lowlife motherfucker and Fred is standing next to him as FP watches her swim almost gracefully to the bank before she pulls herself out, shakes out her hair, and gives him the finger.

  
FP is grinning but his eyes are following her almost reverently. He glances over at Fred with a grin and says, "I'm gonna fucking marry that girl," and Fred knows, then it's just a false alarm after all, it isn't the explosion.

  
And it isn't, at the end of it all they're making out in the bed of Fred's pickup while Fred kisses Hermione's long, long neck in the front, and they're seventeen and they've never felt so young.

  
The gang relaxes for a bit, but they're all waiting for it; they all know how big it'll be at the end.

  
When the end finally comes, it's not an explosion at all. FP and Alice, when it's over, really over, it's not with a bang but a whimper.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So there that is, enjoy the dumpster fire!
> 
> You know where the title comes from, don't try me.
> 
> I love you so much.


	8. i hate that i love you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> FP hasn't seen Alice more than a few moments in the hall since the bonfire, but he knows if he'd gone to any one of those parties he would have seen her tonight, her and that blond, rich idiot she's taken up with and he just can't do it, tonight.
> 
> He's seventeen and he's so fucking tired.

They win the championship game and FP gets invited to a half dozen after parties. He smiles and says yeah, maybe he'll make it, and even Fred offers him a ride but he tells him he's got something to take care of first.

Fred cocks his head but he doesn't ask questions, and FP loves him for it. Fred knows him in a way maybe nobody else does, and he's grateful, so he claps Fred on the shoulder to reassure him.

"I just want to shower at home. I'll catch up."

Fred smiles and goes on his way, with that curly haired new girl he's so sweet on clasping his elbow.

FP hasn't seen Alice more than a few moments in the hall since the bonfire, but he knows if he'd gone to any one of those parties he would have seen her tonight, her and that blond, rich idiot she's taken up with and he just can't do it, tonight.

He's seventeen and he's so fucking tired.

He's weary of this back and forth, acting like he doesn't care that she doesn't even look like herself or that her smile doesn't reach her eyes. He feels like an asshole, chasing poor Gladys just to get a rise out of Alice or to make himself feel like less of a loser, chugging whiskey with whoever will share so that his chest doesn't ache so much when he sees Alice with her hand tucked in Hal's back pocket or slipping into his Jaguar and not so much as glancing FP's way.

So he drives home on his dirtbike and convinces himself he isn't just changing the meeting place, isn't hoping for her to show up.

He falls down on the bed and immediately realizes this was a bad fucking idea. At least at a party he can distract himself for a while. At least at a party he doesn't find blond hairs on his pillowcase or remember how a week ago she pulled him so hard back into bed when he tried to get up for school that he ended up flat on his back in the floor, and she'd laughed so hard at his stunned expression that he put his arms behind his head and just stayed there, watching her and smiling and eventually she called him an idiot and jumped off the bed and onto his lap and they never made it to school after all.

So he still ends up chugging the whiskey he'd pilfered from the Whyte Wyrm, but his chest is still aching when he finally makes it to the shower and turns the water on as hot as it'll go. He lets it run cold before he gets out, standing there, drunk and shivering and fighting back tears.

He's wearing his dad's old plaid pajama pants and debating if he's sober enough to shave when he hears the trailer's door swing open. He stands there, looking at himself in the mirror, his hair wet and slicked back, eyes bloodshot, until he hears her heels clunk down on the floor.

Suddenly, he's hot all over, trembling, and so mad that when he comes out of the bathroom he throws the door open so hard the doorknob goes through the sheetrock.

She's perched on the arm of the couch, peeling off her nylons and still wearing Hal's jacket and she looks up at him like nothing's happened, like no time has passed since the day they'd played hooky in his bed all day, and his heart jumps into his throat and that just makes him madder.

"Get out," he says, and he expected to be yelling but his voice comes out low and shaky and he hates it.

"Don't be dramatic, FP, I'm sorry I didn't-"

"Get out, Alice." He says, again, and he doesn't trust himself to move toward her because he's so mad and she still looks so fucking beautiful.

"Baby," she says, and he closes his eyes because he can't look at her.

He feels her hand snake around his waist and he steps backward so quickly he stumbles into the bathroom door.

"Don't, Alice. I'm not fucking around."

"Baby, did you drink too much again?"

She ticks her head toward the whiskey bottle on the countertop, and he hates that, too, hates her patronizing him, but he also wants to badly to give in and hold her, let her lead him to bed and curl up next to him, hitching her leg over his waist like she always does, like she doesn't want to let him get away.

But he smells gin and Hal all over her and he jerks away from her when she tries to put her hand on his face.

"Alice, I need you to get out. Right now."

Her blue eyes flash up at his, now he's done it, he's pissed her off because she can only take so much rejection before her claws come out.

"Why, FP? You gonna hit me?"

"Stop it, Alice."

"Hit me if you want to, FP. I can take it." Her voice is low but her eyes are blue flame and she jerks her chin up at him.

"I would never hit you." He keeps himself from yelling, but just barely.

She's standing close enough that he could kiss her now, and he knows she'd bite his lip bloody and pull his hair but then she'd push him against the wall and wrap her legs around his waist and they'd go right back to where they were and he's just too tired.

"Then why? Is that scrawny bitch coming over? That why you're all freshly showered and smelling like a rose drowned in whiskey?"

Her eyes are still flashing but there's something behind them like tears and he hates it when she cries but he knows she hates it even more.

"I just want to go to sleep, Ally, just go, all right?"

A switch flips, just like that, and her eyes go soft again. "We can go to sleep, baby, I'll rub your back, let's just-"

She reaches out to touch him again, and this is how it goes, it's all a fucking cycle, she's hot and cold, but this time her voice is cracking and desperate and he wants to give in so badly, wants her hand on his face but he can't give in now, because she's still wearing Hal's jacket, smelling like the oiled leather seats of his Jaguar and FP suddenly wonders if she'd let Hal fuck her in the backseat and his chest feels tight and it's harder to breathe.

He ducks his head and pushes past her into the living room and she's right on his heels.

He picks up her purse and heels, sitting right next to the door like always. She'll string her clothes all over the trailer, but her purse and shoes are always right next to the door, easy access, and that pisses him off again and he's grateful because it lessens the pull in his gut and he opens the door with one hand and chucks them out into the yard with the other.

She doesn't speak, doesn't even look at him, just goes barefoot out the front door.

He slams the door shut behind her and he's breathing hard, flushed with the whiskey and anger and he stalks into the bedroom but then he goes right back to the door, chest heaving.

He's seventeen and he feels too much, there's something clawing inside of him, and he leans his forehead against the door and something like a growl and a scream comes out of his throat and he's punching the doorjamb over and over until he's splintering the wood and his knuckles come away bloody.

With a ragged breath he jerks open the door which is barely hanging on the hinges after his assault, and she hasn't gotten her heels and purse from the yard, she hasn't done anything but turn around and stare at the door and tears are streaming down her face but she still doesn't move, doesn't speak.

"I love you, Ally," he says, his voice hoarse and desperate, and it's the first time he's said it, after all this time, it's the first time he's let himself say it and he's thought it a thousand times but he didn't say it because she deserves better than him, than a soon to be drunk in a shitty trailer, a Serpent just like her daddy who will never get out of this shithole town, because she's in someone else's letter jacket, because she's got big plans and he doesn't have any.

He's seventeen and he's in love and it hurts and he can't keep it in anymore.

Alice rips off Hal's letter jacket like it's on fire and throws it into the mud in the yard and nearly knocks him over when she comes at him because it's the last thing he'd expected from her.

"I love you," he says again, and she's crying so hard she's making this snuffling sound in her throat and when she kisses him it's soft and almost gentle, which is nothing like her, nothing at all, and he doesn't know what else to say so he just keeps saying it. "I love you," and that just makes her cry harder and she's kissing him again and again on his mouth and face and neck and she locks her hands behind his head and won't let go.

He puts his hands on her hips and lifts her up, and he tries to kick the door shut but he's busted the doorjamb so it just creaks back open but he doesn't care, wouldn't care if the trailer was on fire because she tucks her head into his shoulder and whispers, "I love you, too, FP."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've had this scene in my head for a WEEK, you guys.
> 
> Chapter title is from i hate u i love u by Gnash ft Olivia O'Brien


	9. heartbeats and tangled sheets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Don't leave me, ok?"

He takes her into his bedroom and when he tries to put her down on the bed she locks her hands tighter behind his neck and pulls him with her. "Don't leave me, ok, FP?" she begs, and her voice is small and broken but she can't bring herself to care.

"Never," FP manages fiercely, and he's kissing the tear tracks on her face. He's got his bloody right hand in her hair and it'll be a bitch to wash out in the morning but she feels like she's almost got him close enough, now, almost close enough to quiet all the things she hasn't said to him, can't say to him.

She's still got her legs up around his waist and she's still crying but she unlocks her fingers from his neck and shimmies out of her dress.

She's pushing his pants down with her feet and he chuckles at her urgency and moves his bloody hand from her hair to just the outside of her breast and just barely grazes down to her hip, where she's got fingerprint bruises and he takes in a long breath when he sees them and she stiffens, waits for him to yell at her, call her a whore, leave her just like he promised he wouldn't, leave just like her mother when things got too hard and being Southside was too much with a needy baby girl who kept at her heels.

When he looks back up at her face his brown eyes seem darker, bigger, and instead of yelling at her he just gives her this sort of sad half smile and murmurs, "You break my heart, you know that?"

And she's crying all over again because she does know that, she knows and she hates it, she's breaking her own, too, and right now there's nothing in the whole world but this and it all seems so stupid, all the time she spent fooling around with Hal and pretending to be an upper crust cold bitch who wasn't madly in love with FP Jones, because right now she doesn't care if they spend their whole lives in this trailer with the door he'd beaten off the hinges, doesn't care if they have a dozen babies that trap her here because they'd have his big brown eyes.

She wants to say she's sorry but there aren't words big enough for that so she just says, "I love you, FP," and leans up to kiss him and she reaches down to pull him cock first closer to her and he laughs into her mouth and follows her lead.

When he's almost inside her and she's squirming on the bed and her skin is on fire, his mouth on the hollow of her collarbone just where he knows it drives her crazy, he stops and moves her hands from roaming over his shoulder muscles to behind her head, trapping her.

She groans in disappontment and he grins at her. "Say it again," he commands, and usually that'd piss her off but tonight she feels wide open, freed somehow.

She says it again, over and over, "I love you, I love you," and he lets go of her hands and guides himself inside her, achingly slowly, and with them it's always been fast and desperate but this is a sweeter kind of torture and she rocks her hips up to sink him in deeper.

He drops his head and moans into her neck and the sound just makes her hotter.

She tells him again, and he's never been this hard inside her, it makes her laugh to think this is suddenly their dirty talk, and she lets go and tells him everything she's wanted to say as he moves inside her, that she loves him, that he's everything she wants and that no one else makes her feel like this, no one else will ever make her feel like this, and he's moaning her name over and over, and she comes just from hearing it, because it's always been the sexiest thing in the world to her, his _Ally, Ally, Ally_ when he's close.

He's spilling into her and she locks her ankles around his waist and pulls him down on top of her, enjoying the feel of their sweat cooling under the air conditioning and the weight of him.

She asks him again, then, feeling insecure as he quiets his breathing, because he's not talking.

"Don't leave me, ok?"

He pulls his head up enough to look at her and he's grinning his old grin, the one she hasn't seen since she's been riding around in Hal's Jaguar.

"Baby, you couldn't get rid of me if you tried."

She laughs at that, but she's only seventeen and she won't realize how true that turned out to be until she ends up at his trailer door 25 years later.


End file.
